In the prior art terminals have been used to read and verify different types of documents, including identity and/or travel documents. Over the years alteration and counterfeiting of such documents has been increasing and, to counter same, features had been incorporated into the documents to make it very difficult if not impossible to alter or counterfeit documents.
To hinder such counterfeiting and alterations to identity, travel and similar documents, and documents having value, many innovations have been proposed or introduced. One solution has been the development and implementation of new materials for producing such documents that has made counterfeiting and alterations more difficult, and the detection of counterfeit and altered documents easier and faster. Such new materials include the use of holograms and retro-reflective layers in laminating material, invisible information that only appears when illuminated by certain wavelengths of invisible light or other energy, and different types of inks that are seen as one color under normal ambient light but are seen as a different color when illuminated by certain wavelengths of invisible light or other energy (chemical taggants). In addition, magnetic and radio frequency (RF) taggants that are invisible to the eye are added to base materials and laminating materials but may be detected using special equipment. Further, micro-miniature smart chips and memory chips are embedded in such documents, just as they are in smart cards, and may be used to identify, read and validate documents in which they are embedded, and to identify and validate the bearer of such documents.
One example of a security laminating material used for anti-counterfeiting of passports is 3M's Confirm® security laminate described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,411. Another example of a 3M security laminating material used for anti-counterfeiting of passports is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,064 and utilizes retro-reflective glass microspheres.
An example of an identity card using smart-card technology has recently been introduced in Malaysia where an embedded computer chip and memory allows the card to be used as a combination identity card, driver's license, cash card, national health service card, and passport.
Coupled with the increase of new materials and new techniques to produce documents that are more difficult to counterfeit or alter, there has been an increase in the demand for new equipment and systems for automatically identifying and validating documents, for validating the identity of a bearer of a document, for verifying that the bearer has authorization to participate in an activity represented by the document, for comparing information on the document against information databases, and to determine if there are any other known concerns about the document or its bearer. This demand has risen because it has become virtually impossible for a person, by them self, to analyze and validate documents using such new materials and other techniques.
Accordingly, features have been added to terminals used to read documents to validate and verify the documents and their bearers such as described in the related patent application cited above.
However, criminals and terrorists may have been issued valid identity and/or travel documents prior to becoming a criminal or being identified as a terrorist, or such documents are being wrongfully issued by corrupt officials in some countries to criminals and terrorists for a fee and they are usually issued with wrong names and other information. When investigating the terrorists who performed the acts of Sep. 11, 2001 it was found that some of them had multiple false, but valid passports in different names and from different countries.
In addition, some individuals steal the identity of other individuals by first obtaining duplicate birth certificates and other documents and records that are then used to fraudulently obtain “valid” documents, such as passports and identity cards including national identity cards. Accordingly, validation and verification terminals designed to detect altered and counterfeit identity and/or travel documents will not detect such “valid” documents wrongfully issued to and used by criminals and terrorists.